


A Thousand Ways To You

by figsoclock



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Post-Movie, a what if, not as tragic as the tags would have you think dnw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10752582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figsoclock/pseuds/figsoclock
Summary: Chihiro looks for gateways, and Haku fulfills his promise.





	A Thousand Ways To You

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don't own Spirited Away (a.k.a. Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi).   
> I posted this on my fanfiction dot net account back in 2009 (it’s still there), but I remember re-reading this several years after I posted it and cringing a bit at some parts. I’ve decided to edit it further, change and add some stuff, and post it here, because ao3. \o/ (That said, I don't have a beta, so any and all mistakes are mine.)
> 
> Special thanks to Measured for the review then, and for catching tense changes!

She laid on her bed, drowsy and more comfortable than she ever remembered. Her mind knew this was a lie-- she had been far more comfortable in the midst of the gaggle of futons squished together in that second floor room than on the soft, wide bed she was laid out on right now. However she dismissed the thought as too troublesome to think about, and continued to drift half in a dream.

The shrine she had chosen to stay in was taken care of by a family who had kindly allowed to let her live there.

There was a period of nothingness, all sleepy circumspection, and thoughts that slipped playfully through her fingers before she could completely grasp them, like water.

_She had read in a book somewhere that in order for one to cross the gates that divided the mortal realm from the spirit realm, one had to do certain preparations._

_What began as a half-hearted attempt to relieve her constant ache for a different reality, first turned into an obsession, and then molded into a way of life._

_Her parents had been a bit surprised though proud at her new piety, which had turned into shocked dismay and heavy disappointment at her decision to take vows of celibacy (she had to prove her dedication after all). This then turned into resignation, but not before a brief period of anger, during which her father asked her, rather bitterly, which god had she promised what now, to have even the audacity to deprive her parents of a grandchild. (She had wisely kept her mouth shut.)_

_She had never gone to university, but she did graduate from high school._

_It had been a rather long life, full of temple-keeping chores, good deeds, purification rites, and daily disciplined meditations (usually while sitting cross-legged under waterfalls). She had helped feed the hungry, tried her best to shelter the homeless, donated clothes for those who needed them, and when she couldn’t, she directed those who needed help to charities, or to the local community’s outreach programs. (The last one became easier to do with time, as her reputation slowly grew. The people and organizations who became familiar with her knew to come to her directly to seek aid.)_

_She's still rather clumsy and still not so athletic, but she made up for it with a kind heart and warm disposition, and some wisdom. She did grow up. She was ninety years old now._

_But a small part of her stayed a child, and it was this that she guarded jealously from the world, making sure it would never be taken away._

The curtains fluttered in the breeze; she stirred and uttered a soft sound. A miko of the shrine shuffled in quietly to check on her. Satisfied she is still breathing, the miko lightly smoothed her blanket, replaced the incense on the burner with fresh new ones, then left.

The wind blew a little more forcefully than the last, and the wind chimes at the window tinkled.

She was fully awake, but let her eyes stay closed. When she opened them, she wondered why she was on a bed, and why there were lace curtains on the rather small window-- wasn't she in a shrine?-- Oh. That's right; they moved her here to the little house by the shrine, thinking she would be more comfortable on a bed than a futon.

They didn't understand that she felt more comfortable in the shrine than anywhere else; more comfortable in a place where she felt she was closest to the world that had given her strength _._

_The old, smiling guardian statue with the cave-like gateway, the abandoned town with the dilapidated god-statues, the windswept field overgrown with grass, the river stream that flowed quite happily through there into the ocean-- she had found solace in that place, hoping against hope that she would be able to go back and visit them one more time._

_Even when she had accepted (as much as she could) that maybe she can't go back (at least not yet) she had still found refuge just sitting there, in silence or while talking to the wind and the grass and the stone statues. And she had never been more at peace talking to the water._

_But the town council voted to close off the entrance when a little girl wandered aimlessly in and nearly drowned in the small river. It didn't help that more gossip had started several days before– rumors resurfacing about a family who was spirited away at the place and was found several weeks later, normal but without recollection of what had happened to them (she already knew this story, of course-- it had been no one else but them, the Oginos.)_

_She had begged her parents to talk to the council to have the decision rethought. She thought it was ridiculous – how could anyone be harmed by the water when a water guardian resided in that place? Or at least, near that place?_

_Her mistake was to try to explain this – the girl nearly drowned, but she_ didn't _, and why?_ Because a water god saved her _, that's why. Her reasoning had startled her parents, who remembered what the neighborhood had been whispering about-- something that the little girl who nearly drowned told her mother after she had been rescued: "Mommy, a dragon saved me!"_

_She saw them exchange glances and shiver -- nebulous flashes of vendor-less food stalls that they quickly dismissed, she imagined -- and she thought that she'd won._

_"But honey, that's even more reason to seal it off, isn't it?" Her father, with an uncomfortable, sheepish smile on his face. "I'm sure the water god would not want to be anymore disturbed. It’s safer for everyone that way."_

_The next day they sealed the place off and shattered her heart._

She exhaled at the memory, the pain and the scream she had wanted to yell out still fresh in her mind. Yet in that moment when she'd thought she had really, finally lost them ( _lost him_ ), his face slipped into her mind, unbidden, saying to her "We'll find another way. That was the gate you left through. We'll find another way. _There are other gates out there._ ”

That was when she had vowed to find as many gates as possible-- and where are there usually gateways? At least, the ones she was looking for? And how could you be worthy enough to stay in those shrines, to enter those gateways?

Her wrinkled, old mouth smiled at the memory. She'd chosen no other path since.

_In one of the shrines she had stayed in they had called her Sen after the near thousand shrines she had visited, upon having heard her story of pilgrimage. And though the name never spread to other shrines and had only stuck at that particular shrine, it amused her to no end and she let them call her that._

Light streamed in from the window now; the burst of brightness before dusk glides in and eats it up for an elaborate dinner and scatters golden, twinkling stars as a reward for the day that had prepared its meal. A whole day had come and go and night was settling in, lighting lamps and stoves, rousing tantalizing smells of food from the kitchens, and wafting long lines of smoke from the bath houses.

She thought there had never been a more perfect time to die.

Another breeze blew, a stronger gust of wind that flapped the curtains, lifted them up, and when she opened her eyes-- 

He was there.

Feet planted on the windowsill, head ducked and in, crouching, with both hands supporting his light weight on either side of the window frame. White robes and dark hair and fair skin and the kind, river-green of his eyes that had calmed her so long ago, and that calm her still.

_Nigihayami Kohaku-nushi._

His solemn face stared at her.

She looked back at him. Then smiled, with her near toothless, wrinkly old mouth, and a silly thought of why didn't she wear her dentures passed through her mind--

But he smiled back. And slowly reached out a hand, offering her what she had been trying to find and acquire all through her years.

"I promised," was all he uttered, and her smile grew even brighter. Slowly, she stretched out her hand, and put it on his own.

"I know."

His smile widened, and he gave her hand a gentle tug---

_Come, Chihiro. Come home._

\---and she allowed herself to slip away. And somehow she felt light, younger, and somehow she was, and somehow his other hand found her other hand, and he gathered her in his arms and pressed his forehead against hers and they were flying.

And back on the earth, in the room where she had laid, the old woman with her wrinkled face and her gray hair and her peaceful smile passed away in her sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading!
> 
> Tbh I initially thought this was gonna be a series, but I ran out of ideas.  
> Keeping my original author notes here for posterity: I'm pretty sure my description of the place where Yubaba's bathhouse is supposed to be (when it is invisible to human eyes) is NOT accurate; I've tried looking for pictures but couldn't find one, and the CD that I own where there –are- pictures isn't with me right now. So. Please just pretend that the place is as I described it here (although it's not in sync with canon), for the story's sake. Oh, and this is also unbeta-ed, a.k.a. I beta myself. xD Thanks!


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